Collectively, we started the Great Ignore.
Growth at all costs wrecked outbound. The playbook of automated outreach gave way to mass messaging, burning bridges with buyers. It’s time to reconnect.
)
Manifesto
We brought this on ourselves. We got greedy and wrecked outbound. The playbook was simple and worked: find the right person, send the right message, at the right time, through the right channel. Then, automation gave us an easy button. We smashed it — over and over and over again, ignoring how resistant buyers were becoming.
And, all of a sudden…the playbook just stopped working. Data had driven us to obsess over the quantity of meetings booked at the expense of the quality of connections. The result? Both buyers and sellers feel under constant pressure.
As sales professionals, we must accept responsibility for what we've done. I acknowledge my role. We repeatedly pound huge lists of buyers on email, phone, and LinkedIn using lazy messaging, hoping to find a few who will engage. Our behavior led to GDPR, CCPA, the Priority Inbox, aggressive SPAM filters, email security gateways, and DNC lists. Now, signal-led selling and AI SDRs can be even bigger spam cannons to blast buyers with. We are actively disrupting companies we want to help.
After a decade of selling new sales technology to 1000s of GTM execs, I found one constant: in a sea of same, nobody has an advantage.
Everyone has access to the same data, the same signals, the same vendors, and is using the same products to automate the same playbooks. Millions of sales reps just got notified about that new VP of Sales or new round of funding, and they all sent the same automated, AI-generated email you did. You spent big to get results while scorching contacts and burning time, watching money go up in smoke.
There was a time when sellers called, and operators connected them to buyers. How do we get back to that? Can we operate effectively enough to book meetings with 1 highly relevant touch (ok…maybe 2) instead of 100 intrusive ones?
We can. That level of connection still exists, and buyers want it most. If flat, black-and-white spreadsheets turn into 3D, full-color insights, spam becomes success, cold calls become conversations, and DMs become demand.
We need to see people, not leads. We need insights, not more reactive signals. We need to turn activity into engagement, not more automation for metrics sake. And we need to attract people through genuine connection, not tweak sales tactics.
Mark Kosoglow
CEO and Co-Founder
